


why do we fall?

by sparklyslug



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Epikegster, M/M, Superpowers, Tactile Telekinesis, Telekinesis, mind-reading, psychic powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7104262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyslug/pseuds/sparklyslug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Didja miss me?” Kent had asked <i>/ looking strong/ look good/ looking happy/I could stand here all night and all day and just look at you/</i> and Jack’s control had crumbled, jerked him out of step with time and out into the swirling minds of the college kids filling their house, his consciousness sent running by the brightness in his own chest. </p><p>And now Kent is making him laugh, as though there’s nothing complicated about it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	why do we fall?

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of thrilling heroics, Samwell University is now in Boston. Thanks to the wonderful defcontwo, for betaing and fabulousness and putting together this amazing challenge!
> 
> Title is from Batman Begins, one of maaaaaany superhero universes I have cribbed concepts from!

Jack takes a deep breath, and then another.

He can feel all of Boston going on around him, just outside the walls of the Haus: the murmur of half-articulated internal monologues and the push of intentions and the sharp spike of top-shelf brain activity, from the college kids going from party to party and the Uber driver idling in the street and the neighbors across the way who would be calling the cops if they weren’t otherwise occupied.

He can feel all of the Boston that’s _going_ to be happening around him too, the crash of a glass that hasn’t been dropped, the happy shriek that the girl outside hasn’t opened her mouth to make, the clang of a key against floorboards and footsteps outside his door that haven’t— that are— that could be—

Jack puts his hands on his knees, and leans over. Draws a circle around his own mind, something shining and bright behind his eyes. Draws another circle around the here and now, the real moment, him standing in his shadowy bedroom, lit only by one weak bulb of his overhead light.

The triple-vision that is everything that’s happening in the minds around him, everything that’s in the future, and everything that’s happening now, slides back into place. Or as much as it’s ever into place, years of practice and getting it right still not quite the same as it had been before. But it’s enough, and Jack has learned to accept it being enough.

So by the time Kent opens the door, Jack hears his hand on the knob at the instant he completes the action and not a moment before. He feels the bright brush of Kent’s mind not as a sharp prodding of thoughts and emotions but as a muted haze of familiarity – Kent’s mind, to Jack, felt familiar to him even the first time he experienced sliding into it. As if he’d been doing it for years.

Unless he’s trying very hard, Jack can see everything coming. But he manages to surprise himself, by putting his hands on Kent’s hips and yanking him into a kiss, before Kent has managed to close the door behind him.

Jack honestly hadn’t seen that coming.

Neither had Kent, by the way he jerks under Jack’s hands, and his habitual control over his own mind slips, blazing out so bright that it feels like enough to illuminate the whole room. Jack doesn’t open his eyes to reassure himself that that’s not the case, that reality doesn’t shift to accommodate how Jack feels it to be, instead he gets a hand on the small of Kent’s back and pushes forward into his chest. The thud of Kent’s heart against his, tracking real time.

The door slams shut behind Kent even though Kent didn’t lift a hand to touch it, and Jack would jump (he hadn’t seen that coming either), but now Kent’s adjusted. Jack gets the advance warning of _/god/feels so/wasn’t expecting/there you are/_ and then Kent has a hand in Jack’s hair, and is kissing him back, a moan pressed against Jack’s lips.

A lot of things changed for them, very quickly. They had known there was a risk, from the beginning. Jack had grown up with it, watching his dad leave on patrol and then going out with him, first as his eyes in the sky and then at this side, Bad Bob’s boy wonder. But just when he’d started to register the ache, the fear, the need for something more, he’d met Kent.

Kent had approached him about the Juniors, starting a network for the kids like them, the tag-alongs and the sidekicks and the kids who wouldn’t stay out of the life, wouldn’t stay safe at home, when there was something they could _do_. The kids who, like Jack, had grown up in this shadowy left hand of the law. And the kids who, like Kent, had been forced into it too young, too fast, and who had decided that they would never let history repeat itself for someone else, not if there was something they could do about it.

It was just sharing information, at first. The adult heroes had their weirdo hangups about talking to each other even in the League, because of who had once slept with someone’s secret identity without realizing, or who had been possessed by a being from outer space and injured someone else’s mom, or whatever. But the Juniors talked to each other, they shared intel and rumors and tips, and Jack can still remember the glow when he could tell his Dad “oh, that’s the sign for the First Wave, they’re based out of New Orleans but have been pushing North lately,” and see his dad’s look of surprise and appreciation.

It hadn’t stayed at just sharing information. Loyalties shift. Kids grow up. And partnerships end.

And then they begin. And the first night in their new “headquarters” (the attic of an abandoned building that Kent had quietly acquired with money that wasn’t his), Jack had dropped to his knees in front of Kent as soon as they were alone. Kent’s hand had gone tight in his hair and he had let out a surprised, shaky moan, and Jack had felt settled and safe and sure for the first time in years. For the first time since he’d pressed a domino mask over his eyes, probably.

He’d had two years with the Juniors. The first six months were close to hell, trying to figure out how to cooperate and work as a unit, Kent and Jack fighting almost as much as they were fucking. But there was a solid year after that where they finally found their rhythm, Kat spinning to trip the goon that Jack had just pushed, Kent on Moira’s six to catch the sniper in the rafters with a well-thrown dart, Petra and Ollie jawing non-stop between ruthless take-downs and laughing the whole time.

Then there had been the cave, and what waited for them inside of it.

And Jack was lucky to have made it out of the next six months alive. He almost hadn’t, dragging himself through hazy weeks without sleep and the weight of the thoughts of others that he didn’t know how to shut off or shut out, not sure if he was five minutes behind or five minutes ahead, not sure where he was in time or – just before the end – if he was in any kind of time at all.

Trying everything, anything, to hear what Kent was actually saying to him instead of the / _fucking frustrated/unfair/let me/just stop/_ thundering against Jack’s mind. Trying everything and anything just to get some sleep. Get a little peace and quiet. To rest, he just wanted to rest. 

But he had survived. Which still made him one of the lucky ones.

Now, Kent’s hands are spread across Jack’s chest, it’s an unseen force that tips Jack’s head up, gives Kent access to his neck. Jack doesn’t fight it, closes his eyes and groans, because _fuck_ – that really does something to him, even without Kent sucking a bruise just where he knows Jack will love it the most.

“Kenny—“ Jack manages, and Kent hums against his neck, opening his mouth to bite.

“Good to see you too, Zimms,” Kent laughs, satisfaction and _/remember this/ remember you/ can you tell what I want to do to you wouldn’t take a mind-reader to figure it out/_ and Jack laughs.

God, of course Kent can do this to him. Half an hour ago, Jack had been leaning against the wall and talking to Bitty – not about Bitty’s latest tech project or something related to a patrol or to Lardo’s latest intel, but just talking— when the lightning-fast impression of Kent standing in front of him had almost knocked him to the floor, coming too soon in advance of Kent’s actual appearance to give Jack any time to recover.

He’d had to run away, get some space and get upstairs because he could feel his control unravelling, the balancing act he’d learned in those post-Juniors years slipping under the brightness in Bitty’s eyes as he’d looked at Kent, Kent cracking some joke and looking completely at ease.

“Didja miss me?” Kent had asked _/ looking strong/ look good/ looking happy/I could stand here all night and all day and just look at you/_ and Jack’s control had crumbled, jerked him out of step with time and out into the swirling minds of the college kids filling their house, his consciousness sent running by the brightness in his own chest.

And now Kent is making him laugh, as though there’s nothing complicated about it at all.

“Parse—“ Jack puts his hands on Kent’s wrists, and the slight pressure is still enough.

Kent sighs against Jack’s skin, and leans back. _/Why not/ just let me/ ah well/ that just figures/_ but he’s smiling.

“Still no good at getting out of your own head, huh Jack?” he says, and the clarity in his mind recedes, Kent pulling himself under a veil that Jack can’t brush away. “Even though you’re so good at getting into the heads of other people.”

Jack isn’t sure what makes him flinch more, what Kent says, or how good he’s gotten at yanking his mind away. They’d both learned control while they were apart, then, the way they couldn’t learn it together.

“What are you doing here, Parse?”

“I read the news,” Kent says, and steps back, pulling his hands from Jack’s chest and out of Jack’s loose hold. “And graduation’s coming up, huh?”

“What’s in the news?”

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do next?” Kent says instead of answering his question. He glances at where his snapback fell from his head at some point after Jack jumped all over him. The hat lifts from the carpet smoothly, and sails into Kent’s hand. He doesn’t put it on, instead spins it around a finger, as he looks around at Jack’s bedroom.

“Are you asking me if I can see the future, Parse?”

Kent cracks a smile at that, but he’s got his composure back, and Jack can practically see the emblem floating over his chest, on superimposed on the blue cotton button-down.

“I don’t know,” Jack says slowly. “I—could go back to Montreal, work with Dad again.”

“Right, because that worked so great last time.”

Jack frowns. “Could join the Outlaws, or Nera’s crew. They’ve gotten in touch, said—told me to think about it.”

“Yeah, I bet they did,” Kent says quietly. “But we both know off-planet isn’t for you.”

Jack could argue it, but he still sees the sickly-purple light from the inside of that cave every night when he closes his eyes, and Kent knows it. No, Jack doesn’t want to work off-planet.

“I’ve got some options,” Jack says, though really he only has two. “I don’t know yet,” he says.

Knowing what other people want is open to him. Easy to see, to understand. Knowing what he wants is another thing entirely, and he’s frankly fucking sick of that ironic situation.

“What about Vegas?” Kent says, and even though his mind is a smooth and opaque polished surface that Jack just slides off of, Jack still saw it coming, felt it deep in his gut. “What about the Aces?”

“Kent—“ Jack says, and feels the brush of something soft over his cheek, the ghost of a touch even though Kent isn’t looking at him.

“Why not?” Kent asks, and lets go of the hat. It doesn’t fall straight down, moves sideways instead to hook itself on the desk chair next to him. It looks natural there, the black-on-black of the Ace of Spades indistinguishable from the other hats, the t-shirts, the posters that Jack sees even on the other side of the country. Not that that means anything, since the Aces operate all over the world.

“I don’t—“ Jack says, then swallows. “It’s not—“

“Not _what_?” Kent says, exasperated. Looking at Jack now, but eyes darting down to his neck every other second, where Jack knows he must’ve left a mark. “It’s not what you want? Don’t give me that bullshit, okay, I know you haven’t stopped working even during this little ‘college’ break.”

He actually does the air-quotes, too. It would be laughable, if not for the annoyance that’s starting to build in Jack’s gut, the shutter-flickering sensation of Kent’s hands dropping a moment before they actually do, Jack’s agitation starting to send him drifting slowly out of the linear stream.

Jack takes a deep breath. And then he actually takes a deep breath.

“Told you,” Kent says, “I’ve been reading the news. And your signature is all over it, okay? And you’ve been— you can’t stop yourself, I know you can’t, it’s who you are to help people.” There’s a note in his voice that Jack hasn’t heard in a long time, the kind of fervent longing that had hung in the air between two kids in masks before they knew anything about the faces behind them.

“I am helping people,” Jack says quietly, brushing back the threads of thoughts that are coming up from downstairs, from outside his door, as if there’s someone— “I’m helping people here, where I am now.”

Kent laughs. “What, helping old ladies cross the street? Getting cats down out of trees? No, of course you’re helping people,” he says, sobering up a little but still smiling. “But you can do more than interrupting a handful of muggings in one city, okay? We were made for more than this, Jack. We were made for bigger things, for better things, to really make a difference. You’ve done some good with this shitty shoe-string team of kids, but there’s more out there for you. For us.”

 _/Want you/_ floating clear and bright between them, _/want you/ back/ with me/ want you back/_

But Jack has gone very, very cold. And he pushes Kent’s mind away, turn his awareness to the city spreading out around him. The city that saved his life, the heartbeats in it and the eternally bubbling wave of consciousness that pulled him out of the hole he crawled into and meant to fade away in.

This team, these _shitty shoe-string_ kids who have looked up to him and planned with him and guided him, Shitty’s laughter and non-stop talking reminding him of Petra and Ollie while still being his own kind of endearing and infuriating, Ransom and Holster joking him out of the bad moods that he can’t help sinking in to sometimes, Lardo’s easy leadership and fierce love for her home city. And Bitty, in their commlinks and in their ears, outfitting them every night with some inventive new variety of flash bomb in one hand and a cookie in the other, because lord forbid their blood sugar spikes in the middle of a fight, he’s just being _practical_ Mr Zimmermann. All of them adjusting to Jack, accepting him, and – most importantly – showing him how to be more.

“You don’t get to do this,” Jack says.

There’s a fluttering around Kent, a tugging at his shirt and his hair, and he frowns. “Jack—“

“You don’t get to show up here out of nowhere, in _my_ city—“

_/never answer/ called a million times/ Jack call me/ call me back/ shut me out never gave me the chance/_

“—as though you still have the right, as though you still lead my team, and say that the people I’ve helped don’t count, the lives I’ve _saved_ don’t count.”

_/more than this/ more than right now/ feels like flying feels like everything just come with me/ back again/ like it was/ better than it was/_

“Or act like you know who I am or what I want, or what I should be or what I was _made_ to do, because I never wanted to be _made_ for anything.”

_/not true/ used to be/ smiling in the middle of a fight/ didn’t even need to look/ knew you were with me/ every time/ fighting next to you/ in your blood even before/ who you always were/ before/_

“ _Stop it_ ,” Jack says, and presses his fingernails into his palms, the glow of Kent’s thoughts sending him teetering almost past what he can handle.

Kent, who hasn’t said a word, takes a step towards Jack. “What do you want me to say, Jack?” / _what more than this/ what would be enough/ what is it really/_ “I miss you, okay?”

_/I miss you/_

Jack closes his eyes. The feel of Kent’s mind wraps around him, and that’s— he knows. It’s always there, beating under every impression and every sensation he’s been able to pick up from Kent, ever since his disastrous attempt to just have some rest and quiet at last. Even when Kent’s managed to learn how to pull his thoughts away from Jack, wrap himself up in a hard and shiny shell that Jack can’t penetrate, that much is still there, bright enough that Jack could pick him out in a crowd.

“You always say that,” Jack says. Because Kent doesn’t even have to say it. Even when he tries not to, he says it.

There’s a sense of pressure, in the room. As though the air just got a little heavier, requires a little more effort to breathe it in, draw it through his lungs.

“Oh,” Kent says. “Huh. Okay.”

Jack draws the line between now and soon, and draws it hard. He doesn’t want to see what’s coming next.

“I know what you are, Jack,” Kent says. His hat falls from the chair and slides, slowly, across the floor towards him. He doesn’t look down at it as it goes. “And that cave didn’t do a damn thing to change it. It just gave you the out you always wanted, the excuse to run and hide that you were always fucking looking for. You wanted to be a hero so fucking bad but you couldn’t take the pressure, and a magic rock was just the cherry on top of your fucking inability to deal with that.”

Kent shoves at Jack without lifting his arms, and it’s not much more than a gentle touch, but it still flashes hot through Jack’s whole body and he stumbles. Though that could have very little to do with the actual force of Kent’s talents, which he had mastered almost within the week of the horror that fell on them all.

“So you want this tiny little stage with your tiny island of misfit toys, where you get to be the special super-powered King of the intramural wannabe heroes? Sure, Jack. Because you’ll never let them down, because you think the stakes aren’t high enough for you to fuck things up for them too?”

Jack breathes. But he hears the words clearly, battering at him, and then he has to hear them again:

“Just give it time, Jack. There’s always another fucking cave, huh?”

“Get out,” Jack whispers, and stops himself when he realizes he’s said it twice, and again, unsure if or when he’s formed the words.

“Sure,” Kent says bitterly, and the hat shoots up into his hand again. “Fine.”

“And don’t—stay away from my team.”

Kent’s eyebrows shoot up. “Why? Afraid I’ll tell them something?”

_/come on guys we have to check it out/ you said/ light in your eyes/ you knew/ knew something would happen wanted it to happen wanted this/ you/_

_“Leave,_ Parse,” Jack says.

_/I miss you/_

Kent turns on his heel, and the door flies open in front of him and – and Bitty’s kneeling on the other side of it.

Jack should have known, should have sensed him there, but it just figured that Kent’s presence blinded him to almost everything else.

Kent pauses, and then clears his throat. Puts his hat back on his head. Glances back at Jack. Not at his face, but lower. At the mark he left on Jack’s throat.

“Well. Good luck being the savior of Boston, Jack. I’m sure that’ll make your dad proud.”

The front door slams, a key’s in the ignition, he’s driving away, and then Kent steps down the hallway and down the stairs. And he’s gone.

Bitty turns to Jack, a hand out. And Jack takes the hand and takes him into his room and curls up around him and breathes in the sugar in his hair and the engine oil smudged behind his ear and the door is closed and the Haus bustles around them and Boston spreads out in all its shine and brilliance and—

The future isn’t stone, though. It’s water. The trick is to not get swept away by it, or at least recognize the riptide when you're caught in it.

So now, Jack steps back. The future goes silent, and Jack closes the door, hard, behind him.


End file.
